Of all the things we want our cars to be, “reliable” is always way up at the top of the list. No matter how narrowly focused a car may otherwise be as an off-roader or street carver or luxurious cruiser or something else, the one thing we’d all like the machine to do is start, run, and return us home (or to the finish line or trailhead) without breaking down or failing to start in the first place.
And when it comes to daily drivers and work vehicles, nothing trumps reliability. No one can afford to be late or miss a job with any regularity. Everyone needs reliable transportation, and a reputation for reliability can only be earned. No amount of marketing can spin a car that lets customers down into one they can count on.


For a lot of buyers, that means Honda and Toyota top their preferred brands list, though they aren’t the only reliability stars. Getting more granular, specific models like Civic, Corolla, Accord, and Camry are singled out for bulletproofness. More knowledgeable car buyers might advise budget-conscious shoppers to look for anything with a Buick 3800 V6 for day-in, day-out infallible transpo.
No matter what advice you’ve gotten or like to give about which cars can be counted on and which to avoid, there are always surprises. A low-mile Corolla that somehow becomes the bane of your motoring existence. The high-mileage luxury European car everyone told you not to buy has, incredibly, never let you down. And so, today we’re asking What Supposedly Super-Reliable Car Was A Lemon For You (And Vice Versa)?
Says Matt,
People always complain about old German luxury cars, but my 240k-mile BMW is great. I treat it like a Honda Civic and, other than a flare up here or there, it acts like a Honda Civic. I realize by saying this I’m dooming myself.

I fully expect that Matt’s BMW, now jinxed, will strand him within a fortnight. (Yeah, I say “fortnight” now.)
David, meanwhile, had a terrible experience with what shoulda been a no-worries ride:
I bought a 1995 Honda Accord; it was, to this day, the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever owned. Everything broke at once, and it wasn’t that easy to fix. I loathed it. And the fifth gear synchro didn’t work. Could it have been abused? Sure. But that doesn’t excuse it abusing me.

Matt piped in:
Between a Honda Accord and Saturn Vue, I would not have picked the Vue as the reliable daily. Who would?
Stephen also hated an Accord. Am I taking crazy pills?
One of my most-difficult to own/fix was one that ha sa reputation for not breaking. ’08 Honda Accord Sedan, I bought it off of a local door guy that had just gotten in a RF fender-bender (with accompanying DUI) and hit the local Pick n Pull to piece it back together. Fender, headlight, bumper cover, fender skirt, brackets, etc. Once it was back together and painted, I kept getting an transmission shifting issue that pointed towards the speed sensor. Popped a new one in, same issue. The part I purchased had the same dimensions and connections as the one it replaced, so I figured there must be some other internal issue with that transmission. Sold the car for cheap with the concern. Later, I learned that Honda uses both an input and output speed sensor on that transmission that both use the exact-same pigtail connector and are identical! Of course the sensor that I had swapped out was The Good One (Input) and all the next owner had to do was swap out the Output sensor. A solid learning experience.
Your turn! What Supposedly Super-Reliable Car Was A Lemon For You (And Vice Versa)?
Top graphic: Toyota
My 1993 Civic would chew thru headgaskets and brakes like there was no tomorrow.. weirdly enough though, the 1997 Neon that replaced it just refused to die no matter what kind of abuse and neglect it was subjected to by a early 20’s me.. so much that i developped both a disdain for Hondas that lasted until i had my Fit late in 2008 and a love for 1st gen neons.. go figure!
Edit: Since then, i had (and still have) a 2012 Civic Si that’s pretty damn near 300k miles of pure bliss. A 2021 Prius Prime that i olanned to keep a lo g time and a 2024 Prius Prime that replaced the 2021 that got traded in.. Love the Prime even though the radio just plain sucks.. now if only Toyota would update the software so it would stop to jerk/black screen/freeze..
VW Beetle.
I should have realised I was sucking a lemon when on the test-drive the fuel tank was leaking (filler neck had a crack and fuel was slopping out of it). However my Dad was insistant that Beetles were fine cars: the shop fixed the filler neck before purchase.
2 weeks after purchase, on 1 hour drive to pick up my little brother from school, a piston ring blew, the crank-case was over-pressured, and so the pressure-relief valve was blowing oil into the engine bay. This was on a January night, and the Beetle’s “heating” system was just a vent that sucked “hot” air from the engine bay! We had to drive home breathing hot oil fumes with all the windows down: freezing our asses off and succumbing to hypoxia.
Threw it back at the shop 2 days later when they refused to fix it and got (most of) my money back.
A 1993 Oldsmobile Achieva S. Bought it in 2002 and I still have it. Still runs great despite the caved in trunk thanks to a guy in a Chevy truck who forgot that snow is slippery. I know those 2.3 Quad 4 engines have a reputation for blowing head gaskets but mine was very reliable. Though I did almost kill it by falling for the Lucas oil stabilizer marketing. Turns out that “stabilized” oil has a hard time getting all the way up the timing chain to the cam sprockets. Luckily my brother decided to replace the timing components so we discovered the problem before the chain took a walk. Those sprocket teeth looked like a kid’s drawing of waves on the ocean. Two nice smooth curves all the way up to a very sharp point. But she hung in there.
1998 Lexus LS400 – or more specifically the Toyota Celsior badged version. Less than 100,000 miles (154000 kms to be exact). It ate suspension and electrical components and left me stranded twice. Basically, the 1UZ is a great engine for the most part, however the rest of the car is no more reliable than a German equivalent of the era. Finally sent it off once the transmission shit itself.
I know that this isn’t the actual point of the exercise – it was a lemon of a car with a bad reputation to begin with – but my first car was a 1990 Volkswagen Passat with 180,000 miles on it. It earned the nickname “The Shitbox” in my friends group and it lasted barely eight months
We have a dud of a Toyota Highlander Hybrid LE AWD. We got it new in 2022, but it has all kinds of issues. The hybrid system lurches, stumbles, and lags like a carbureted engine out of the Malaise era. The dash rattles. Panel gaps are big enough to put your fingers in (take that, Fremont!) The motorized rear hatch motor stumbles and grinds. The paint is as thin as tissue paper.
The good? It gets 32 to 34 mpg even with all-terrain tires and the rack on. The AWD system does well on snow, ice, and off-road. It does hold eight people if four of them are kids
TL/DR: the second an OEM comes out with a mass market off-road capable, three row plug-in, this thing is gone.
My first S10. 1999 2.2L auto, rwd. Had something like 90k miles and was a one owner truck. The owner had died and it sat for a few years before my parents got it for me as my first car in high school. Maybe from sitting a few years, but it had constant issues. A/C lost all the pressure twice, it had trouble with missfires, and cruise stopped working almost immediately. Within a year they sold it to get me a car since I was going to be responsible for taking other kids to school as well now and it was a single cab.
I later purchased a 2000 S10 2.2L manual with 223k miles from my dad when he got a new daily driver in 2021 and that thing has been wonderful. Ice cold a/c, gets 20-22 mpg in the city, and I added cruise off a wrecked truck from the Pick and Pull which works flawlessly. Shows what sitting can do to a car. I suspect mice had gotten in it.
Chevy Cruze. Supposedly an absolute turd and yet at 147k mine has been reasonably trouble free. I won’t pretend it has been the epitome of repair free with needing oil cooler seals, a water pump, water inlet neck and replacement of the intake manifold and valve cover thanks to the shitty PCV check valve design, but otherwise the car has treated me well for the 130k miles of ownership I’ve put on it.
Probably helps that I’ve owned a number of old vehicles so I’m kinda numb to needing to do some repairs here and there.
The title pic car. We had a 1983 Toyota Camry in a far less awesome white color and it was an unrepentant piece of shit. Anything that could break, did. Didn’t help it was a (shoddy) salvage yard restore. My mom and I both learned to drive on it (it was our first car in the States), but that was basically the extent of its positives. It was finally put out of its misery when it was stolen for parts, then recovered, intact but for a fucked up transmission. Wouldn’t shift past third. Sold it for as much as we bought it for ($500, obviously, not including all the sunk costs inbetween) and bought a 1994 Mazda 626 V6 that went like hell, but had a blown head gasket we didn’t discover until a year into ownership.
I feel like I have lucked out quite a bit on my cars being reliable. Even the Mini. My current Accord had an issue with the cylinder deactivation (V6) and recently the alternator died. But it’s 13 years old.
06 or so Honda Odyssey, bought CPO with about 70K miles. It was in for repairs so often, I knew the dealer shuttle driver by first name. Only owned for a year, dumped since there were so many problems. Final straw was heater not working, dealer found cooling system packed with rust.
I had a 2003 Jeep Liberty that was surprisingly reliable. I kept if for 11 years until 2014 when I traded it for a Ford Escape. I had two issues with it: first was that the blower motor went out due to dog hair — given it was my dog hauler, no surprise. I did have the transmission fail, but that didn’t happen until about 6 months before I got rid of the car. Given their infamous transmission problems, I think I did pretty well.
I know a lot of people hate on the Liberty, but mine was a really good car, and it would go anywhere. I was one of the few people in Seattle that was able to get around when it snowed.
The Liberty gets way more grief than it deserves because it’s not the XJ. My family owned at least four of them over the years and while they were certainly not perfect, they were cheap and got the job done. Jeep could use more that these days.
2015 Dodge Dart, bought used at 13k miles. Only non maintenence items were a couple sensors that triggered a CEL each time, no drivability or running issues when those came up. Currently at 150k with the 2.4 auto.
Lemon: 2003 Volvo V70. Multiple breakdowns in spite of regular dealer maintenance. Final straw was when the fuel system started leaking all over the ground while I was filling it up with my family in the car. After getting the leak addressed, we traded in the Volvo for a VW Sportwagen TDI.
Surprisingly non-lemon: used 1994 BMW 318i sedan. Other than oil / filter changes and regular service-interval work, it was super-reliable without any need for additional maintenance. Ended up selling it for what I paid for it, and AFAIK, it is still running.
I bought a brand new 2022 Honda Civic Si thinking it would be a reliable choice and a safer bet than my 115k mile modified 2015 GTI for my new 150mi/day commute. That GTI was trouble free up to that point. In the one year I had the Si it spent two months at the dealer down for warranty work, new turbo, new seat frame, 1 window regulator, one door lock actuator, and infotainment screen. This whole time there weren’t any loaner cars and Honda wouldn’t pay for a rental. luckily I had my track day NA miata to drive to work. The final straw was when the now recalled “Sticky Steering” started to crop up, but the dealer was unable to replicate while the car was still under warranty. The managed to diagnose it after the 36k B2B ran out, but couldn’t get it “goodwilled”. Instead of forking over for a new steering rack and EPS unit I dumped the car and traded it in for a 2018Mazda3 hatch 6MT, which has since been replaced with a 2018 Civic Type R becuause obviously I didn’t learn anything.
An admittedly high mileage but it was all I could afford 1996 Honda Civic LX-after dailying an e30 that was actually very reliable, I as nonetheless in the mood for something easier and cheaper to fix and I’d just moved to a new city and didn’t have much money-the BMW had blown the head gasket right before my move.
Discovered the civic’s clutch was badly slipping a week after I bought it, then found out it had a steady but slow coolant leak that was hard to diagnose. The power door locks stopped working, then the main bearing in the differential started growling. Replaced the clutch and had the shop put in a used transaxle from the junkyard only to find out the junkyard transmission was crunchy on the 1-2 shift but at least the diff was good.
Of course I milked that slipping clutch for almost a year hoping someone would steal the car. Finally gave in and replaced the transaxle-and two months later the car was stolen and found crashed against an underpass. Replaced it with a clean high mileage BMW e46 (lol) which as expected was needed a lot of little things replaced but was also a great car…
This is an easy one. My current daily driver. It’s a 2015 Jeep Renegade Latitude with the 1.4L MultiAir Turbo engine from the Fiat 500 Abarth and a six-speed manual. I purchased it new in ’15 and it has carried me, to date, a hair over 170,000 miles. It has never broken down. The closest it came was when the radiator sprung a pinhole leak near the end of a 700-mile roadtrip. It still got me home, I replaced the radiator in the driveway and the part cost $90. Everything else done to it has been on the maintenance schedule. It’s been, quite frankly, ridiculously dependable.
I’m usually pretty careful when purchasing cars. I’ve never bought new, and tend to purchase rigs that are known for their reliability. I’ve had some of my cars give me little “fits” of unreliability, but I think I’ve only ever had two side of the road, need a tow breakdowns. One was my ’77 Cherokee, which only took me about 10 years to getting around to fixing, the second was my ’01 Tracker, which threw a bent tensioner pulley after screaming at me for about 6000 miles.
I had a 2005 Subaru Legacy GT that I assumed would be reliable. It was by far the least reliable car I’ve owned. Here’s a rundown of the issues:
*A belt jumped its track shortly after I bought it (used from a reputable Lexus dealer) and started messing things up in its vicinity
*The heater with auto climate control would work as normal at start-up, but eventually only would shoot air to the floor regardless of setting
*The heater started blowing in white smoke and my Subaru dealer couldn’t figure out why.
*It collected flat tires somehow and me changing them on my own led to..
*…three broken wheel bearings (correlated with what tires went flat)
*The heated seat starting operating at boiling lava hot for about a month and then died.
*And of course, the final nail in the coffin was when a particularly viscous Chicago winter blew one or multiple head gaskets. (I never bothered to find out).
On the flip side, my wife and I have owned several cars that should have been more problematic but have been fantastic instead:
2012 Fiat 500 – Bought it new and we still own it today. It did refuse to start once around 2015 on a road trip. It eventually came around and we took it in for warranty work. Whatever they did solved the issue and it’s never happened again. Other than that, both door handles have partially broken and one power window slider broke. Maybe a tire pressure monitor. I can’t remember. That’s it. Not expensive fixes but for a car that is now 13 years old, cheap, and from a notoriously unreliable brand, I think that’s pretty good. It came with a lot of optional equipment and it all functions the way it should. I feel confident driving this car across the country.
2012 VW Jetta GLI – Something about the motor was supposed to be a ticking time bomb (I forget what), but supposedly if you keep up on maintenance, it’s less likely to be an issue. Whatever could have happened never did and I did not have a single issue in the 7 years I owned it. The lone exception was that one of the lights that lit up the license plate had loose wiring. But if you gave the trunk lid a nice pounding, it would turn on.
2021 Alfa Romeo Giulia – I had a battery crap out pretty shortly after buying it new, which is common. But supposedly that was partly because I drove it too short of distances (Italian cars going to Italian). My commute is longer now and it’s not been an issue since.
I have a buddy with the same gen Outback XT, an ’08, and in spite of being seemingly clean and passing a PPI when he bought it used it’s had near constant problems-he just bought a BMW to replace bc if he’s going to pay BMW maintenance costs might as well have the BMW driving experience.
Funnily enough I chose the Legacy after being talked out of an ’04 BMW 330i because of possible maintenance and repair costs. I often wonder if the BMW would have been the cheaper car to own.
I owned a ’00 323i for awhile my experience was they weren’t really all that bad, but seemed like maintenance came in waves of big $$$ but then would be pretty solid for awhile. IMO a lot of the little stuff is actually made better than a Subaru-but to me the fear with German cars is always that potential they have for borderline bankruptcy inducing repairs out of the blue that generally-Subaru head gaskets aside-they seem to more just nickel and dime you constantly. Of course you seem to have grabbed the bull by the horns by going Italian!
Somehow Subaru tops Consumer Reports reliability list. I’ve got a ’18 and my wife has a ’19 that we’ve both owned from new, and that I’ve maintained myself. They haven’t been unreliable per-say, but it always makes me wonder how much worse other brands must be if this is the best it gets.
While the cars are getting up there in mileage now–I try to keep that in mind–they’ve both needed some work.
’18 Outback (113k miles currently): Two wheel bearings, a ball join, an axle shaft, an EVAP canister, idler pully on the serp belt, the tensioner on the serp belt, and now my infotainment screen is delaminating and failing. The rest has been regular maintenance, but I’ve done CVT drain and fills more than perscribed.
’19 Forester (98k miles currently): Wheel bearing, rear linkage on the suspension, coolant control valve (that was pricey but Subaru reimbursed us after it ended up being recalled after the fact), and an unfindable issue with the driver door speaker since just out of warranty.
I truly wonder if there is a confirmation bias in Consumer Reports ratings bc they rely on owner reporting. Like because people tend to be more active in their purchase of a Subaru do they as the ads claim love it more and are therefore are more prone to overlooking the problems bc in their minds no other car will replace it? Sort of like imo the average BMW owner underrates how much maintenance they put in because they feel its justified? Anecdotally Subaru seems massively overrated to me based on friends who’ve owned them. By comparison I’ve known several people with mazdas that have gotten closer to 200K than 100K without needing significant work and yet they rate marginally lower than Subaru when I look at consumer reports.
Of course we also just bought my wife a super low mileage 2015 Legacy from a friend’s grandma that was too good a deal to pass up, so hoping it’s better than your outback 😐 Can I ask why on the CVT we just picked it up and I’ll probably DIY a lot of the maintenance-I know we had a friend who bought a used Forester with like 100K and had the trans crap out 2 weeks later, is it problem prone?
2006 Toyota Matrix. What an awful pile of junk.
2003 Dodge Neon. It was everything the Matrix was supposed to be.
The relative quality between models is always interesting to me-my wife’s car when I met her was a 2005 Pontiac Vibe (same as the Toyota matrix in everything but body) and we now use it has a beater 3rd car, and it has been about as reliable as can be expected for a nearly 20 year old car that is now at 160K miles.
I’ve always been a Honda owner. First was a 92 Accord. I got it around 200k miles from my dad. It had a few issues, namely blowing something and spraying oil out the side of the car while I was 300 miles from home. Limped back by going from gas station to gas station, stopping to refill the oil every 50 miles. Timing belt slipped around 290k or so, and the 2009 flood decided to finish it off for me.
2008 Civic – bought used, CPO. Had been a fleet vehicle. I should have known something was up with 43,000 miles on it in a single year of fleet service. It ate 3 alternators, 2 batteries, and a starter. Drivers side window fell off the track. A/C died, and after being cheap and not wanting to repair it, I found out it was a $8 fuse, not the compressor. Oil changes were done religiously, so that never was an issue until the guy at Take 5 (I was in a hurry) decided to ugga-dugga the drain plug and crack the pan. Slow leak, sold it to a neighborhood kid who fixed it and is still driving it with no issues. I guess I took care of all the gremlins.
My wife bought a 2004 Corolla from her sister…oh boy. Thing kept dying when stopped at a light or stopped in traffic. You had to shift to neutral, hold gas to keep RPMs above 2000, then shift back to drive when the light changed. We replaced the idle air control, Mass airflow sensor, O2 sensor, cleaned the throttle body, all for nothing. A 16 year old kid in a VW Passat T-boned it, totaling it out.